


Well, This is Salubrious

by Persiflager



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Sex In A Cave, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:36:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflager/pseuds/Persiflager
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney and Ronon go camping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well, This is Salubrious

When Ronon first met McKay, he thought McKay was an idiot. Then he thought McKay was mad. Then, in quick succession: a conman, some sort of mascot, a genius, a child trapped in a grown man’s body, a device for turning food into noise, and an asshole.

He’s only managed to rule one of them out so far.

…

“So we can’t use the gate,” said Ronon again. They were standing in the middle of a grassy valley on an uninhabited planet that Lorne’s team had already visited and found to be boringly safe. It was a dull, humid, miserable day and he’d just spent six hours alone with McKay.

McKay threw his hands up in the air. “You weren’t even listening, were you? We can use it, there’s just a small but significant chance that a solar wind will hit the wormhole and send us to some random point in time. Which would be bad, yes. The storm shouldn’t last more than a day so I’m proposing that we radio back to Atlantis, let them know the situation and wait it out. And believe me, I’m significantly less happy than you are at wasting more of my valuable time here when I could be-”

Ronon turned away and started looking around. If they were stuck here for a day they’d need fresh water, shelter, some more food to supplement the single MRE in his pack …

Behind him, McKay muttered to himself and dialled Atlantis.

…

Ronon was staring at the dark grey clouds gathering on the horizon when McKay joined him a few minutes later.

“So, Elizabeth agrees with me that as there’s not currently an emergency on Atlantis we should stay here until the solar storm is over. Although, you know, I left Zelenka in charge of the lab so that state of affairs probably won’t last long. Also that jackass Sheppard wished us happy camping and said that you’re not allowed to stun me, which … you wouldn’t, would you?”

Ronon bared his teeth in a grin. 

“Right,” said McKay, looking less than fully reassured. “So, what are you staring at?”

“Storm coming.” 

“Really?” said McKay, squinting. “I can’t see any- hey, where are you going?”

“You want to stay here and get wet?” Ronon made for the nearby cave system he’d seen on their way to the ruins. The promise of rain crackled on his skin, making the hairs stand on end, and he could feel the wind rising.

“Well, no,” said McKay, scurrying to keep up. “But that’s miles-”

“Better hurry then.”

…

They reached the caves just before the rain started. It was loud, thundering down outside and echoing round the stone walls of the cave.

“Well, this is salubrious,” said McKay as he stood just inside the entrance and surveyed their temporary home. He was out of breath and sweaty from the hike, which was probably the most exercise he’d got all week. 

“It’ll do.” Ronon dumped his pack down on the dirt floor and dug out a flashlight. “Going to check further back.”

“Have fun,” said McKay with a dismissive wave as he sat down on the ground and started fiddling with his machine.

As he set off, Ronon wondered how long he’d have to be gone before McKay would think of doing anything useful like fetching water or finding wood for a fire. He wouldn’t test it out – not worth the bitching – but he wondered.

…

It had taken four missions with Sheppard’s team before Ronon had been convinced that McKay’s usefulness outweighed his weaknesses. 

(He’d felt the same way about C4, which had much in common with McKay - they were both noisy, useless in a fight, and capable of causing massive explosions. He suspected Sheppard saw the similarities too, as why most of their battle plans revolved around getting McKay, the C4 or, ideally, both to where they could do the most damage.)

It wasn’t until the sixth mission that Ronon had seen a reason to like McKay. He knew that Sheppard did, and Teyla seemed to like everyone, but Ronon couldn’t see himself getting any further than tolerating him. McKay didn’t seem too interested in him either, outside of his usefulness to the team, so it wasn’t a problem.

Sheppard and McKay had been tossing out wild stories about Earth and Ronon had been getting more and more irritated by the fact that he couldn’t tell which stories were true and if they were laughing at him or not. Eventually he’d interrupted an argument about the vehicles they’d called cars and said, completely straight-faced, “Your cars don’t fly? On Sateda, all the cars flew.”

Teyla had given him an amused look and Sheppard had raised an eyebrow but McKay had just blinked at him and said, “Really? Do you know what propulsion system they used? And when you say ‘fly’, do you mean fly or hover because-”

And Sheppard and Teyla had cracked up and Ronon had grinned at them and, as they walked along laughing and McKay said, “What? What - oh, ha ha, very funny,”, Ronon had decided that McKay might be ok after all.

…

The cave immediately opened out into a larger space as Ronon moved back into the hill. There were a few small tunnels leading off it, each of which led to a dead end, and a lot of dead wood and leaves that had been swept in by the wind. He made his way back to the entrance to find McKay sitting on the ground, staring disconsolately out at the sheets of rain pouring steadily down.

“Nothing back there.”

“Swell,” said McKay, not moving, having clearly sat on his ass the whole time Ronon was exploring. 

Ronon fished his canteen out of the equipment bag and swigged the last few drops of water. “Have you got any water left?”

McKay frowned and wriggled round to pull it out of his back pocket. “Some. Why?”

“Finish it.” Ronon stared at McKay until he did what he was told, then took McKay’s canteen out of his hand and went to the cave entrance and leaned out. Ignoring the cold rain that hammered down on his head and dripped down the back of his neck, he wedged the two open canteens in the ground and ducked back in.

“How very Robinson Crusoe of you.”

Ronon couldn’t tell from the tone if that was meant as a compliment or an insult. “You’re welcome,” he said, keeping his voice flat enough that it would work for either.

McKay ignored him in favour of opening up his laptop and sighing.

“What?” asked Ronon, squatting down next to him.

“Not enough computing power to process the data,” said McKay, gesturing at the screen. “Great. Just great.”

McKay had spent most of the day fiddling with an Ancient console Lorne’s team had found. From what Ronon had been able to pick out from all the babbling, it was some sort of deep space scanner. Whatever it did, it had seemed to make McKay happy - he’d looked pleased with himself, thrusting his chest out and waving his hands round like a monkey.

Ronon nodded. “So you can’t do any science stuff.”

“Well, there are some other projects I can work on, but this isn’t exactly the ideal working environment and-”

Ronon nodded again and stood up. “Come on.”

McKay blinked up at him. “What?”

“We’re going to train.”

“We’re - oh, no no no-”

“You said yourself, you haven’t got anything else to do. We’re stuck in here til the rain stops - might as well do something useful.” 

McKay gaped at him. “But-”

“There’s plenty of space back there.”

McKay stared at him for a moment, clearly trying to think of an excuse.

Ronon stood patiently and crossed his arms.

McKay hesitated for a moment before finally pulling a face, setting his laptop down and clambering to his feet with no more than the usual amount of grumbling.

…

Just enough dim light filtered through to the cavern for them to be able to see each other, and there was a light layer of dust and dead leaves on the ground. As impromptu training grounds went, Ronon had seen worse.

Not that McKay seemed to appreciate it. “For the record, I think it’s a bad idea to be doing this without immediate access to medical facilities. I’ve seen what happens to your sparring partners. Also you should know that I have a weak ankle, and an allergy to-”

Ronon tuned out the whining until it was just a background buzz and looked at McKay, who was fidgeting nervously where he stood. Ronon had trained plenty of soldiers, back on Sateda, all of them in peak fighting condition. McKay wouldn’t ever be that but he could be better at defending himself. He had muscles that he didn’t know how to use, his reflexes were good and he followed orders in a crisis. He was even an ok shot, provided he was given plenty of warning to draw his gun.

On the downside he was unfit, panicked too easily, was clumsy when he panicked, had no instinct for fighting, and you could see every move he made coming a mile away.

“Relax, McKay.” Ronon tried to make his posture as non-threatening as possible. “We’re not going to spar. I’m going to teach you some throws.”

“Yay,” said McKay, not looking even slightly reassured.

…

Ten minutes later McKay was lying on his back on the floor.

“You’ve broken me, you big oaf,” he wheezed. “I’m so telling on you when we get home.”

Ronon nudged him with his foot. “Get up.”

McKay didn’t move.

“I thought you’d be better at this.” 

“Why,” said McKay, “would you think that?”

“Sheppard said it was just a matter of physics.”

“Sheppard also thinks I should be able to build him a lightsaber, just because-” McKay paused and pushed himself up onto his elbows. “When did Sheppard say this? And does this have anything to do with why he’s been suggesting that we make our chess games ‘a little more interesting’ for the past two weeks?”

Ronon stayed diplomatically silent.

“ _Huh._.” McKay sounded more thoughtful than annoyed. “I thought that was odd because hello, chess. And then I thought he was maybe hitting on me because that seems like the sort of corny line he’d use, but that line of reasoning was fraught with difficulties because on the one hand, don’t ask don’t tell, on the other hand, his hair.”

Ronon chose not to comment on any of that.

McKay narrowed his eyes. “What’s the stake?”

“Pudding for a week.”

“Gimme the blue jello and I’m in.”

“Deal.” Ronon reached down and pulled McKay up to a standing position.

…

By the time McKay had managed to successfully throw Ronon three times in a row, the rain had stopped and Ronon was itching to throw something.

“Oh thank god,” McKay panted, bending over with his hands on his thighs. “I think my entire body is bruised. What are you made of, rocks?”

Ronon looked out over the wooded hillside and the valley below them. Everything was wet, shining in the late afternoon sunlight as the sky cleared, and he could hear birdsong and animals rustling as they came out to warm up and find food.

“Stay here.”

“What? Why?” asked McKay as he straightened up. “Where are you going?”

“Going to hunt.”

“Oh, right. Well,” said McKay, waving one hand in an awkward gesture. “Have fun. I’ll just … stay here.” He looked nervously round the cave.

“Get a fire ready,” said Ronon, checking his gun. 

“With what, cave dust? Not all of us are-”

The muttering faded away behind him as Ronon strode happily down the damp hillside, gun in hand.

…

By the time the light was fading from the sky Ronon had caught two rabbits and found a ripe bilberry bush. He climbed the hill with the rabbits slung over his shoulder and munching the last handful of bilberries with a sense of satisfaction that he hadn’t felt in a while. After the initial wonder of the Atlantis mess hall and MREs, he’d been surprised to find that he sometimes missed fending for himself. It felt good to get out and hunt every now and against, make sure his muscles didn’t forget how.

“There you are!” yelled McKay, his round, pale face appearing like a small moon out of the darkness of the cave. “I thought you’d been eaten or fallen in a hole or something.”

“Did you make a fire?”

“Yes, Akela.” McKay shone his flashlight on an intricately constructed lattice of sticks on the floor, surrounded by stones. “I was waiting for you to get back before lighting it in case the wood ran out.”

“Cool,” said Ronon, feeling good-natured. He had no idea what the point of the weird wooden structure was but even McKay couldn’t fuck up a fire. “Light it. I’m going to get these ready.” 

McKay wrinkled his nose at the rabbit carcasses and fished a lighter out of his pocket.

…

When he’d finished butchering the rabbits Ronon sharpened a couple of sticks and propped them up over the fire to cook. It would take a while to make sure that they were cooked properly all the way through, so he got out his cloth and whetting stone and started to clean and polish his knives by the flickering light of the fire.

“Flares are still going,” said McKay as he wandered back inside. “Looks like we’re sleeping here tonight.”

“Ok,” said Ronon peaceably. He slid the stone along the blade of his third-best hunting knife and listened to it sing.

“Ok? Ok for you, maybe. I have a lab full of idiots who’ll probably blow up the city before we get back. And sleeping on this floor is going to wreck my back.”

The thing about the scientists, Ronon had figured out, was that you didn’t actually have to listen to the words of what they were saying, just the tone. It even worked when Zelenka was talking in his funny language. Like now - this was the relatively calm, relaxed voice that McKay used for complaining about unimportant things when nothing bad was actually happening. This voice meant that Ronon could tune out the details and just nod along while he thought about other stuff.

“What’s don’t ask, don’t tell?” asked Ronon suddenly. “You mentioned it earlier.” And he’d heard it from a couple of the Marines when they were complaining about the way things were run on Earth. He didn’t often bother asking the Lanteans to explain references he didn’t get, figuring that anything he couldn’t work out from context wasn’t that important (and he got tired of being the ignorant one). But there was freshly killed meat roasting on the fire and he’d thrown McKay on the ground a lot today, so he was feeling generous.

“A dumb rule. Why do you ask?”

“Sounds ok to me.”

“Rule of thumb of dealing with the US military - the better something sounds, the more likely it is to be a code name for something shitty. If anyone ever asks you to volunteer for Mission Fluffy Bunnies and Kittens, run the other way.”

Ronon waited patiently. For all his complaining, McKay loved explaining things; he seemed to find ignorance offensive on a personal level. And he was pretty good as long as you didn’t mind being condescended to.

Sure enough, after a couple of minutes McKay put his computer down and gave Ronon a brief explanation.

“Sounds dumb,” said Ronon when he’d finished.

“Yes, well,” said McKay with a complicated wave of his hand that indicated that his usual smugness at being acknowledged as being in the right was tempered by the fact that he would prefer not to be. “That’s the military for you.” Given that McKay seemed to ignore military rules as much as possible – in a ‘I genuinely don’t care’ way rather than the rebellious way Sheppard did – Ronon guessed that he had a personal interest in this one.

“It wasn’t like that on Sateda,” said Ronon, surprising himself.

“Really.” McKay stared at him. “You-”

“No.” 

“Hm.” McKay looked disappointed, which Ronon filed away for later consideration. “Well, congratulations on being a more enlightened society, I guess.” 

That irritated Ronon. On the rare occasions he talked about Sateda, the Lanteans tended to take what he said and use it to as a prism to look at their own world. McKay wasn’t thinking of Sateda as enlightened, he was thinking about the ways in which Earth was unenlightened.

Some of what he’d been thinking must have shown on his face because McKay was now looking uncomfortable.

“Did I just say something offensive? I’ll admit that the odds are fairly high, though I would have hoped by now that there’d be enough, uh, trust in our relationship that violence wouldn’t be your first-”

“I’m not angry.”

McKay relaxed a little. “Oh, good.”

Ronon inspected the meat, which was turning a rich shade of golden brown and glistened with fat. “Nearly ready,” he pronounced, rotating the skewers so that the crispy side was uppermost.

“Great.”

“So, you want to fuck Sheppard?”

The explosion of spluttering denial was enough to entirely restore Ronon’s good mood.

…

The cooked meat tasted good, if a little tough. Ignoring McKay’s muttering about internal parasites and improper food hygiene, Ronon chewed each chunk with relish and licked the juices from his fingers until it was all gone.

Annoyingly, McKay’s complaints didn’t stop him swallowing down the contents of his own skewer. “Not bad,” he said, staring mournfully at his empty stick.

Ronon stood up and kicked dirt over the glowing embers that were all that remained of the fire.

“Hey!”

Ignoring McKay’s protests, Ronon took a torch and inspected the perimeter of the cave by its pale yellow light until he was satisfied there were no immediate dangers. He piled some small stones in a heap just inside the entrance; they wouldn’t stop an animal entering but they’d give him enough warning to react. Then he went back in and settled himself against the side of the cave, gun at his side.

“So you’re just going to, what, sleep like that?”

“Yup.” Ronon turned the torch off and closed his eyes.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“So?”

“You don’t want to, I don’t know, talk a while?”

Ronon made an ostentatiously loud snoring sound.

“ _Fine_.” There was a shuffling sound followed by the gentle tapping of fingers on keys. Ronon fell asleep to the sound of McKay grumbling quietly to himself.

Some time later Ronon woke up. The cave was pitch black and he stayed still, fingers curled around the grip of his gun, trying to hear what had woken him up.

“McKay?” he whispered.

“Sorry! It’s just I’m freezing, and this floor is unsurprisingly uncomfortable, and I can’t shake off the feeling that any moment I’m going to be eaten by a bear.”

“There aren’t any bears.”

“You know, a bear might actually be useful, because you could kill it and then make a nice cozy bearskin rug.” There was a shiver in McKay’s voice.

Ronon thought for a moment. His brain was slow-moving and very keen to go back to sleep as soon as possible. “Ok. Come over here.”

“Really?”

“If it’ll shut you up.”

There was a rustling noise as McKay rolled over to him and then Ronon had a physicist pressed up against his side. “I really do appreciate this,” he babbled, settling himself across Ronon like an extremely heavy blanket, “and so will the scientists of the future because-”

“Go to sleep.” Ronon slid down so that he was lying flat on the floor, then lifted his free arm up out of the way and settled it around McKay’s broad back, letting McKay nestle against his chest. In the darkness, this felt ok - they were friends, they were safe, and McKay’s warm breath against his collarbone was oddly comforting. Ronon patted McKay once on the back and fell fast asleep in between one breath and the next.

…

When Ronon next woke up, grey morning light was filtering through into the cave. The air was damp and cold, and he could hear birds chattering in the distance.

Ronon wasn’t cold, though; he was warm, even a little sweaty. McKay, snoring gently away, had spread even further over him, sneaking his leg in between Ronon’s and jamming his hands in Ronon’s armpits as if the crevices of Ronon’s body were nothing more than useful sources of heat.

Shifting a little on the hard stone floor, Ronon became aware of three things: that his ass was completely numb; that there was an unexpected erection digging into his thigh; and, even more surprisingly, that his own cock was stiff and swollen inside his pants.

When Ronon first came to Atlantis and started having regular meals and a comfortable bed and not having to sleep with a gun in his hand, one of the first changes he noticed was that he started getting hard all the time. It was as if his dick, having taken a backseat for so long, was determined to make up for lost time. Luckily, his pants hid erections well.

The other thing that changed was that his arousal started to connect to people again, to the desire to have sex with them specifically rather than the general physical urge. The first time was when he was sparring with Teyla; he’d looked at her as she re-grouped, tracing a slow circle around him with a wicked look in her eyes, and had suddenly wanted to lick the bead of sweat from her collarbone. In the same moment he’d realised that he was painfully, embarrassingly hard, and Teyla had taken advantage of his distraction to knock him flat on his ass.

It had happened several times since with different Lanteans and he’d been glad about it, but he’d never made a move on any of them – partly because he still wasn’t totally clear on the subtleties of sex and dating in their culture and he didn’t want to screw things up, and partly because the thought of being intimate with someone new in that way made him want to run very fast.

Before Ronon could decide what to do, McKay made a little snuffling noise and blinked his eyes open. He stared at Ronon, frowned, started to move, and then a panicked expression bloomed on his face.

“Ok, that? Is a perfectly natural physiological response which you really shouldn’t pay too much attention to, and please don’t-” McKay blinked again, pressing harder against Ronon’s crotch as he evidently realised he wasn’t the only person afflicted. “Huh.”

Ronon looked closely at McKay - at his wide, startled blue eyes, over-large mouth, and the faint stubble on his jaw - and felt his cock twitch decidedly in response.

Two thoughts occurred to him. First, McKay might be the one person on Atlantis who understood the etiquette less well than he did and second, McKay was plastered all over him but he felt no urge to run.

“Um-”

“Do you want to have sex?” asked Ronon.

McKay blinked at him. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Um … yes?”

“Cool.”

Neither of them moved for a moment. McKay still looked a little doubtful, as if he suspected Ronon of having a joke at his expense, and Ronon was more than a little rusty. He decided that touching would be a good start, and placed his hand on McKay’s ass and squeezed.

McKay’s eyes opened wider and he rocked forward, thrusting his leg against Ronon’s erection in a way that felt really good. Ronon exhaled sharply and squeezed McKay’s ass again. Tucking his face into the crook of Ronon’s neck, McKay began to rock in the steady, encouraging rhythm set by Ronon’s hand on his ass.

Their breathing echoed oddly in the cave. Ronon’s neck felt hot from McKay’s breath and the friction on his cock was sweet and a little sore. This was how he remembered sex with guys the couple of times he’d fooled around in training camp - a rough, hot sort of pleasure, rutting together single-mindedly in the dark. The familiarity steadied him.

McKay paused. “Hey,” he said, raising himself up on his elbows so that his red face was just inches away. “Um, this is great, no complaints, but do you mind if we get some clothes out of the way? I really don’t want to have to go to Carson with a friction burn. For a medical professional, he can be very unsympathetic.”

“Ok.”

“Sweet.” McKay rolled off Ronon and started fiddling with his clothes. Ronon wasn’t sure how much he should remove so he just undid his pants and shoved them halfway down his thighs so that his cock was fully free and his ass rested against the cold leather of his coat.

“Should’ve known you went commando,” muttered McKay. 

Ronon snickered and watched curiously as McKay wriggled his pants and underwear down. He had a nice ass, round and soft and pale. 

McKay crawled back over him. Ronon spread his legs to make room as McKay braced himself over Ronon and took their cocks together in one big hand. Then he let go, spat in his hand, and took hold again.

“That’s better,” pronounced McKay smugly, stroking them with his clever fingers that sent sparks shooting up Ronon’s spine. “Right?” He let his head hang down beside Ronon’s and breathed heavily as he jerked them both off.

It was so much better. Ronon liked the rub of their cocks together, the feeling of McKay’s knuckles brushing against his stomach, McKay’s lips brushing wetly against his ear as he muttered so softly that Ronon couldn’t make out the words. Ronon put both his hands on McKay’s ass and felt it all over, squeezing and stroking and letting his fingers stray down a little way in between his buttocks.

“ _Ah,_ ” gasped McKay. “Yes, that, exactly.”

Ronon didn’t go any further but left his fingers exactly where they were. “Come on, McKay,” he said, feeling the urgency in his balls, and the moment he finished speaking he could feel his orgasm come together. He shook with the pleasure of it as he came silently on a long indrawn breath, feeling the sharp sweetness roll through his body until his knees were weak and he felt emptied out.

“Oh,” moaned McKay as he moved faster. “That’s … yes, ok.” And he came on Ronon’s stomach and collapsed on top of him.

“You’re heavy,” said Ronon after a while. He felt like the air after a thunderstorm.

McKay levered himself up, wincing at the mess between them, until he was sitting on Ronon’s thighs. “Huh,” he said, blinking.

Ronon nodded in agreement. Then he looked down to where they were both soft and sticky and naked, then at the bemused expression on McKay’s face, and burst out laughing.

“What?” snapped McKay, jiggling up and down as Ronon howled with laughter. “That’s not very nice, I’ll have you know I - seriously, what?”

“Nothing, McKay,” said Ronon, grinning, as the tremors subsided. He scrubbed his hands over his face then reached up and ruffled McKay’s fine, fluffy hair.

“Well, good,” said McKay, batting Ronon’s hand away. His expression softened and he patted Ronon awkwardly on the hip. “I’m glad that’s settled.”

…

They cleaned up as best as they could with a tissue McKay found in his pocket and split the MRE between them for breakfast. By the time they emerged from the cave the sun was up and the entire hillside glittered with dew. The water in the canteens was cold and fresh and, as they set off in the early morning sunshine, Ronon felt lighter than he had in some time.

He’d briefly worried that McKay would be weird about the sex. The Lanteans were weird about it in general, in his opinion, and McKay was weird full stop so it was a reasonable concern. Ronon didn’t know what words he could use to explain that he didn’t want to date McKay, and that that was independent both of the desire he’d had for him that morning and of the satisfaction he’d enjoyed. If Ronon screwed up the explanation then McKay would end up being hurt and both Sheppard and Teyla would be pissed at him, and maybe he’d have to date McKay to stay on the team which was a genuinely terrifying prospect because McKay was ok in small doses but he was still kind of a nightmare to be around for long periods of time and also he snored and also Ronon didn’t want to have to go to Earth and eat vegetables every holiday.

Thankfully, McKay just seemed happy to have gotten laid. He bitched at Ronon the entire way there and, apart from being slightly more relaxed across his shoulders, was exactly the same as the previous morning.

“You realise under Satedan law we’d be married now?” said Ronon. The sun was warm on his face and the smell of grass filled his nose.

McKay stumbled. “What, seriously?”

“No.”

“Oh, good,” said McKay, regaining his colour. “Not that you’re not – I mean you’re perfectly – and of course there would be tax advantages so maybe it’s not such a-“

Ronon walked a little faster.

When they finally reached the gate McKay checked his scanner. “Well, I won’t say that this little excursion didn’t have its plus points but on the whole I’d glad to say that the solar flares have died down and we are officially safe to return to Atlantis.” He waved at the gate as if he was personally responsible.

“Cool.”

McKay dialled the gate and they stepped through to find a welcome party that consisted solely of Sheppard smirking at them.

“Hey there, campers. Did we have a fun trip?”

“I see you managed not to completely destroy the city in my absence,” said McKay, looking round the room. He sounded almost disappointed.

“Well, Rodney,” said Sheppard, clapping him on the shoulder, “I-”

The world seemed to slow as Ronon watched McKay grab Sheppard’s wrist, lean forward and, with a distracted look on his face, flip Sheppard over onto the gate room floor.

“Holy shit,” breathed McKay, holding his hands out in front of him and staring at them in amazement. “I can’t believe that actually worked!”

Ronon grinned and ignored the quiet click of a P-90 being armed from one of the upper galleries behind him. The room seemed to have gone very quiet. “Next time, bend your knees more.”

Sheppard, lying flat on his back, coughed. “Ok, nothing to see here folks. Ronon, buddy, mind helping me up?”

“Nah, I’m good,” said Ronon as he watched Sheppard get to his feet. In the corner of his eye he could see McKay wandering out of the room, still staring at his outstretched hands.

“So I see,” said Sheppard, looking suspicious. 

Ronon grinned, which made Sheppard look even more suspicious, and strolled out of the gate room.


End file.
